Business Directories

Qatar a top player in art, museum markets

Paris , October 1, 2012

Qatar aims to become the global leader in the museum industry and the country is already a new "market maker" of the art market, a new study said.

Qatar is using its very substantial financial resources to bid systematically for works by well known artists with a margin that is about 40 per cent to 45 per cent above "market prices", the forthcoming study of the museum industry over the period 2000 - 2012 by Artprice and Organ Museum Research said.

It said more museums and contemporary art centres were opened worldwide over this period than in the previous 200 years, and the period 2012 - 2017 promises to see the opening of even more cultural centres.

Artprice is a global leader in databank on artprices and indices with more than 27 million indices and auction results covering more than 500,000 artists.

The study said the ratio of search requests per head of the Qatari population (1.8 million) is almost 45 times higher than that of Germany.

Artprice has been able to identify certain parameters that highlight the tremendous "war machine" that is turning Qatar into the new "market maker" of the art market, it said.

It should be noted that all of Qatar's cultural institutions are upscale subscribers to Artprice group (Qatar Museum Autority, Mathaf Museum, MIA, National Museum of Qatar QMA, etc.), as are almost all of the royal family who are responsible for the country's cultural development, it said.

In terms of the search requests originating from Qatar, Artprice found on the one hand, a very impressive number of requests per user, and on the other hand, that nearly 50 per cent of the consultations involve searches on its indices and analytical tools.

"Obviously - respecting the ethical rules of the profession of issuers of primary information source - we can easily understand that

Qatar, via its 10 museums, contemporary art centres and foundations, is conducting a faultless strategy involving searching for the best works by well-known artists, and, taking advantage of Artprice's data to ensure the traceability of the targeted works," it said.

In some cases, Artprice notes that entire collections, North American and / or European have been purchased privately or at auctions by various Qatari cultural foundations to accelerate Qatar's conquest of the art market and establish itself as an unavoidable player on the global art market, with museums and contemporary art centres that can easily compete with their American and European counterparts, it said.

"Anecdotally, we have observed intense searches on artists like Richard Serra, Murakani, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Louis Bourgeois, Rothko and Paul Cezanne. Hence the purchase of Paul Cezanne's The Card Players for $250 million, which represents the largest transaction ever recorded on the art market," the study said.

"Concerning this acquisition, based on the data requests launched by Qatari cultural authorities, Artprice can confirm 99 per cent that this transaction has taken place."

Amongst its professional subscribers, Artprice also has all the major advisors and curators that work for Qatar. It is also worth noting that Qatar tried in vain to buy Christie's and is still seeking to acquire one or more international auction operators, it said.

Qatari cultural authorities have a pragmatic but visionary approach and are only interested in masterpieces, it said.

"What is interesting is that the Qatari authorities are daring in their choice of artists, demonstrating a clear desire to modernise their country. They are generating a worldwide reputation and will undoubtedly be in the global top three if not the number one position in 2013. This hypothesis is being confirmed every day now as a virtual certainty," it said.

The analysis also reveals intense data research on Middle Eastern and North African artists, and the Qataris are selecting the best among them such as the French artist of Algerian origin Kader Attia, the Syrian Adel Abidin, Khalil Rabah, the Iraqi Dia Azzawi, the Moroccan Farid Belkahia, the Egyptian Ahmed Nouar, Walid Raad, Ghada Amer, Mounir Fatmi and Zineb Sedira, the study said.

Artprice is the global leader in databank on Artprices and indices with more than 27 million indices and auction results covering more than 500,000 artists. Artprice Images offers unlimited access to the largest art market resource in the world, a library of 108 million images or engravings of artworks from 1700 to the present day along with comments by Artprice's art historians. - TradeArabia News Service/ PRNewswire